• Present Day
    A girl with blue hair and coffee brown eyes walked down the brown stairs of her two-story home. She skipped down the hall to the kitchen where her mom cooked and her younger brother study at the table. Her mother’s face had not been affected by time like others. Her soft skin went perfect with her black hair. The younger brother looked just like the mom but younger and male. “Hey mom, I got a question for you?” The girl with blue hair asked her mom. “What is it?” the mom asked her as she cut up carrots and onions for the soup boiling on the stove. “How did you and daddy meet?” The question struck the mom out of nowhere. Her fingers slipped and the knife cut her left middle finger. The mom quickly let go of the knife and placed her bloody finger in her mouth. “Mom, you okay?” the young brother stood up in fear his mom might be hurt worst. “I don’t think your brother wants to hear some story like that, Jordan.” The young boy brother shrugged his shoulders. “Actually I wouldn’t mind hearing it. It’s always been kind of a mystery.” The mother took a deep breath as she wrapped a paper towel around her hurt finger. “I don’t see why you need to know that? We met and that’s all to it really.” The girl with blue hair rolled her hazel eyes. “Come on, I’m almost eighteen and Markie is sixteen. I think we both can handle hearing the story.” The young brother and girl with blue hair stared at their mother; pleading with their coffee eyes for her to tell the story. “I think you should tell them, Lucy.” A phantom voice came from the door. The father stood tall in officer uniform as chestnut hair was hidden under his blue hat covering his crystal blue eyes. “I really think it’s a bad idea but you can tell them if you want, Patrick.” The mother went back to cutting her carrots.
    The father nodded as he led both children into the living room. As he sat on the warm brown chair the children sat down on the black couch across from him. The father took off his blue hat and placed it on the floor beneath him. “So you want to hear the story?” The girl with blue hair nodded as well as the young brother. “Alright if that’s what you want. It all began on a warm spring day. Actually it was midday about twenty-one years ago. You’re mom and me were both seventeen years old. We never really talked until we met on the highest cliff of our town.” The children looked at disbelief as their father spoke.

    April 19th
    “Patrick Halifax, are your legs aching to leap?” Patrick turned in fear to see Lucy standing there. Her black hair flowed with warm spring air. “Why do you care, Lucy Perez? In fact what are you doing up here?” Patrick asked worried Lucy might know why he was there. Lucy knew her answer wouldn’t matter anymore, so why not be honest? “I made plans to die today. You’re kind of in my way.” She pointed to the edge of the cliff where Patrick stood. He looked away and stated out into the setting sun. “Do you have the sightless clue what you just said to me?” Lucy nodded. “I don’t care, at least not anymore.” Patrick shook his head. “Well get in line, I was kind of here first.” Lucy let out a soft laugh at Patrick. To her, Patrick was the good boy of the school. He had everything; he was the star-soccer player, perfect grades, perfect friends and the perfect girlfriend. Why would he want to jump? In Patrick’s mind the same question passed through his head. Why would she want to jump?
    “Why would you jump? You’ve got everything and more.” She folded her arms and turned her eyes to the orange sky. “I got my own damn reason. None, of which, are any of your business.” Patrick raised his voice. Lucy quickly jumped to her defense. Walking straight up to Patrick and staring him straight in his broken crystal eyes. “Relax; I was just trying to figure out why you would be up here.” Patrick knew there was no purpose for him to make it a bigger deal. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just been a long week. To be honest I don’t even know how I ended up here. What about you?” Patrick sat down on the rocky ground. His feet dangled off the edge of the cliff. “Yeah, I do.” Lucy sat down next to him, wanting to say every word. “Can you tell me? Maybe I’ll feel a little less alone.” Instead of spilling her guts Lucy struck a deal. “I’ll tell you my story if you promise to tell me yours.” Patrick nodded in agreement to Lucy’s terms.
    Lucy took a deep breath and brushed back her darkened hair. The both of them sat in silence for a moment trying to think of the right words to say. Yet somehow Lucy knew how to tell her tale.
    “You know everybody at school just thinks I’m just this messed up girl from a messed up home. I guess it’s a little true. My mom passed away when she gave birth to me. My dad didn’t even want me, but he got stuck with me anyway. He just gave me up to be raised by whatever girlfriend he was sleeping with at the time. He always told me I looked like my mom, that’s why he couldn’t look at me.” Tears began to form in Lucy’s eyes making her coffee eyes shine like jewels. Patrick moved slightly closer and placed his hand upon her shoulder. “After awhile he left me alone to raise myself. I guess I kind of did a bad job if I ending up here.” Lucy wiped away her tears.
    “Not so bad, but it does explain why you’re kind of bully at school.” Patrick’s words caused Lucy’s to laugh for the first time in awhile. “Jerk…” Lucy pushed him slightly “…yeah I guess I am a bully. It kind of makes it easier to protect myself, keep everybody at a distance you know. I trust only in my self, and sometimes I can’t even do that. Having no trust in anything not even me kind of gets to you, you know. After awhile you’re just tired of dealing with being alone.” Lucy sighed and shook her head. “Alright, let’s hear your story now.” Patrick pulled away. Patrick feared to go into his past or even into the present and reveal of why his heartaches. Yet if he was going to be gone might as well get everything out in the open. Patrick took a deep breath and began his own tale.
    “Every single day I get a load of pressure on my shoulder by my parents. I get pushed into one single direction and I can’t break out of it. I don’t think they even know who I am really. What my favorite color is even.” Patrick sighed. “Its green isn’t?” Patrick looked shocked at Lucy’s correct answer. He nodded a little freighted at how she knew. “How did y…” “You wear a lot of green. I’m kind of observant that’s all.” Patrick nodded and continued with his story. “A couple of days ago I told them I wanted to be cop. My dad laughed in my face. He told me that he didn’t care what I wanted. That I was going to be a doctor in his private practice and take over the entire thing when he’s gone.” Patrick shook his head. “Then a few days after that I told my girlfriend I was falling in love with her.” For some reason, unknown, it had struck Lucy hard in her heart. “She laughed in my face and said the relationship wasn’t about love, it was about perfection. Apparently we were the prefect couple on paper and that’s all that mattered to her.” “Harsh dude, my last boyfriend broke up with because and I quote “I’m a lost cause, not worth fighting for”.” Patrick laughed at what he thought was a joke. The moment he looked at Lucy's broken face he knew it was a truth. “Sorry.” Patrick said in shame. “Its okay, it’s a little funny. He gave me this.” Lucy pulled a bracelet from her pocket. Patrick took grasp of the silver bracelet with red jewels shinning off it. “It’s pretty.” Patrick didn’t believe it had any beauty. “You can keep it, I can’t toss it out but I can’t keep it either.” Patrick smiled as he placed the bracelet into his pocket. “Thanks.” Patrick felt like he had to give something to Lucy. He dung around in his pocket as Lucy watched the sun kiss the earth beneath them.
    Finding nothing Patrick looked around but only saw rocks. So Patrick picked up the only brown rock among gray rocks. “Here, take this.” Lucy looked at the small rock and smiled. “Thanks, I think.” Lucy placed the small rock in her pocket.
    The day was leaving as night took over. Lucy stood up as time slipped away. “Well I guess we should stop burning daylight. Uh?” Lucy stepped away from Patrick as he stood up himself. “Maybe instead of jumping, why don’t you spend your life with me?” Patrick looked bashfully at the ground. Patrick kicked a rock slightly away from him. “You’re insane, you don’t even know me.” Lucy rolled her eyes. “Come one we can live on, and screw everybody else.” Patrick ran up to Lucy and took hold of her hands. “You make it sound so easy to be alive.” Lucy said in a soft voice. Patrick let go of one of her hands and wrapped it around her waist. “it is if you’ve got somebody with you, like me with you and you with me.” Lucy pulled away. “What about your perfect girlfriend?” Patrick pulled her back closer to him. “I don’t want perfect, I want you, imperfect.” Oddly enough that made Lucy smile greatly. Lucy thought about how she would leave; in a body bag or with a second chance? “Lucy, I just figured out who are and I don’t want to lose you. I’m giving you such an easy choice.” Lucy stopped breathing for one moment in time, as logic and emotions hit her. “Alright, you win I’ll give you one chance.” Lucy sighed with a smile as Patrick leaned forward touching their foreheads. “But if you hurt me, I swear, I’ll be right back up here. I’ll leap from these very cliffs and finish what I came to do.” Patrick wiped away the last tear from Lucy’s face. “I swear if I do hurt you I’ll be back up here, right behind you.”

    Present Day
    “Your father kept his promise; never hurt me. When we turned eighteen we got married and two years after that we got you Jordan.” The mother finished the story as she walked into the room. She sat upon the lap of the father. “So the both of you were going to kill your selves but you saved each other?” the girl with blue hair seemed confused along with the younger brother. “You’re right, it is a messed up story.” Markie agreed with his parents for once. “An amazing story though with such a cool happy ending.” The girl with blue hair was so happy to hear the story. “Sometimes you do get your fairytale ending.” The mother stood up after her comment. “Even if you didn’t get a fairytale story, you can still get your fairytale ending. Now come on the soup is getting cold and I’m not re-heating the chicken again.” The younger brother, the girl with the blue hair and the father trailed behind the mother.
    The girl with blue hair stopped the father before stepping into the kitchen. “Daddy, was all that true?” The father tried to think of away to prove that it was all true. Then another idea it him; he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. The father hung the keys up in the air in front of the girl with blue hair. There she saw the silver bracelet with dulled red jewels hanging from the keys. Patrick had used it as another key chain. “I made sure to keep it close. Just in case I ever did do something stupid that would hurt your mother. Don’t tell her, if needed I like to use it as a surprise.” The girl with blue hair smiled at the bracelet even as the father placed the keys back into his pocket. “Now let’s go eat. Your mom is going to get annoyed if everything gets cold.” The father led the girl with blue hair into the kitchen.